iPod touch Down with Apple's Touch "Upgrade" Fees

[gillybean]

I just bought a new Touch and the firmware was 1.1.5
After using it for several days, I don't see an incentive to buy the 2.0.1 upgrade. I read an article where only a small percentage of the custom made apps received continued usage, meaning the bulk of them are junk - just like a lot of the addons for Mozilla FireFox. I don't like the idea of paying $10 for an upgrade either, so I'm sticking with 1.1.5 for now.

Upgrade is well worth it. There are some amazing apps there now.

Pandora & AOL Radio will stream all the music you want to you. Datacase turns it into a wireless drive that you can view all the content of. There are good apps out for rdesktop, ssh and VNC if you want remote access to your computer. There are also Finance Apps, To Do Apps, Sketchpad Apps, Movie Showtime Apps, Unit Conversion Apps, a nice selection of games, etc.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Anyway, I'm sure the Apple apologists will have a field day with this post. Knock yourselves out; complaining about others' opinions on this forum isn't going to accomplish anything. Yet, that doesn't seem to stop anyone, does it?

So, if I think stealing the update is wrong, does that makes me an "Apple apologist?"

 

[iOrlando]

i upgraded to 2.01 for $9.95.

I am not a big spender on apps... just a disclaimer

But i do see some of these apps being interesesting. Like the sudoku. I do think 80% of the games are really chessy and they are nice when you have 5-15 minutes to waste sometime

The best apps are those that you use with Wi-Fi. (but you pretty much cant find wifi anywhere except your house..so not sure how useful it is).

All-in-all you are paying $9.95 to avoid being totally bored.

 

[m1stake]

Everywhere I got has at least five wifi signals with no encryption.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

Anyway, I'm sure the Apple apologists will have a field day with this post. Knock yourselves out; complaining about others' opinions on this forum isn't going to accomplish anything. Yet, that doesn't seem to stop anyone, does it?

So, if I think stealing the update is wrong, does that makes me an "Apple apologist?"

Not necessarily, but then my coonent was directed at those intent on defending Apple's mistreatment of its customers.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Not necessarily, but then my coonent was directed at those intent on defending Apple's mistreatment of its customers.

Assuming of course that they feel mistreated.

 

[Zieg3rman]

Everywhere I got has at least five wifi signals with no encryption.

And where is that? Everything near me has encryption, except at college where the entire campus is wifi enabled

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

Not necessarily, but then my coonent was directed at those intent on defending Apple's mistreatment of its customers.

Assuming of course that they feel mistreated.

And judging by this thread (not to mention the number of people seeding the 2.0 software torrents) I'd say quite a few do.

 

[bobjob186]

It's $10...this is a joke right?? If you're crying about $10 you need to get off the computer, sell it, and get a job, because $10 can't even buy you a decent lunch.

 

[IJ Reilly]

And judging by this thread (not to mention the number of people seeding the 2.0 software torrents) I'd say quite a few do.

Judging by the same evidence, I'd conclude that a lot of people will steal if given the opportunity.

 

[aethelbert]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)



And judging by this thread (not to mention the number of people seeding the 2.0 software torrents) I'd say quite a few do.

There are people that feel that they're being mistreated, and others that think that everything on the internet should be free/don't feel like paying $10. The latter is probably the dominant group.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

It's $10...this is a joke right?? If you're crying about $10 you need to get off the computer, sell it, and get a job, because $10 can't even buy you a decent lunch.

Way to miss the point entirely.

I can obviously afford $10 (check my sig and my user title for evidence of that, not to mention the $200 worth of apps I've purchased from the app store so far) ... I suggest you go back and actually read through at least part of this thread to familiarize yourself with the topic, because you've obviously not done so yet.

 

[IJ Reilly]

So did I "miss the point" too?

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

So did I "miss the point" too?

No, you just have a different (and flawed) opinion.

j/k, of course. It just annoys me when people read a thread title and decide to jump in to the discussion with what they think is a clever comment when in fact they've completely missed the point of the discussion.

 

[IJ Reilly]

No, you just have a different (and flawed) opinion.

About thievery? Apparently.

 

[mavis]

About thievery? Apparently.

I'm sorry, I guess I spoke too soon - you're obviously too high up on that horse of yours to see the point. This isn't about theft, it's about Apple screwing their customers over. Please take the time to read through some of the thread so that you'll (hopefully) be able to follow along.

That said, I have absolutely no qualms about stealing from Apple. They've wasted enough of my time in the past month alone (a total of forty restores on two iPhone 3Gs and an iPod Touch, due to sloppy coding) that, IMO, they owe me. That's right - they OWE me for the time I've had to waste getting their buggy products working. I couldn't care less if you agree with that or not (I've got far more important things in life to worry about than whether "IJ Reilly" agrees with my opinion!) but since you've decided to label me a thief, you should know that 1) you're absolutely right (good on ya, mate!) and 2) Apple has brought this all on themselves. Cheers.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm sorry, I guess I spoke too soon - you're obviously too high up on that horse of yours to see the point. This isn't about theft, it's about Apple screwing their customers over. Please take the time to read through some of the thread so that you'll (hopefully) be able to follow along.

That said, I have absolutely no qualms about stealing from Apple. They've wasted enough of my time in the past month alone (a total of forty restores on two iPhone 3Gs and an iPod Touch, due to sloppy coding) that, IMO, they owe me. That's right - they OWE me for the time I've had to waste getting their buggy products working. I couldn't care less if you agree with that or not (I've got far more important things in life to worry about than whether "IJ Reilly" agrees with my opinion!) but since you've decided to label me a thief, you should know that 1) you're absolutely right (good on ya, mate!) and 2) Apple has brought this all on themselves. Cheers.

I don't need to be on a "high horse" to see your ethical problems. Prone in a ditch would be plenty of altitude.

 

[aethelbert]

That said, I have absolutely no qualms about stealing from Apple. They've wasted enough of my time in the past month alone (a total of forty restores on two iPhone 3Gs and an iPod Touch, due to sloppy coding) that, IMO, they owe me. That's right - they OWE me for the time I've had to waste getting their buggy products working. I couldn't care less if you agree with that or not (I've got far more important things in life to worry about than whether "IJ Reilly" agrees with my opinion!) but since you've decided to label me a thief, you should know that 1) you're absolutely right (good on ya, mate!) and 2) Apple has brought this all on themselves. Cheers.

Since they obviously owe you, you should just go walk into one of their retail stores (since you've got those over there) and take something off of a shelf. Or maybe try to take a Mac Pro or 30" ACD. Then try to leave without paying. When you get caught, simply explain about how Apple owes you and that means that you can steal from them. The logic is perfect, so they'll probably let you keep whatever you want to steal.

/sarcasm

I really don't mind you having an opinion against paying the upgrade fee, but when you decide that you can just steal from a company because you think that they owe you something, my impression of you drastically changes...

 

[mavis]

I really don't mind you having an opinion against paying the upgrade fee, but when you decide that you can just steal from a company because you think that they owe you something, my impression of you drastically changes...

As I mentioned before, your opinion of me means nothing - I certainly won't be losing any sleep over it.

I don't really care if you and the other Apple apologists think it's right that I obtained the 2.0 software upgrade for free. I don't particularly think it's right that in their supreme arrogance, Apple bit off more than they could chew last month and botched it all (the MobileMe fiasco, global iPhone 3G launch with accompanying activation server failures, buggy 2.0 software release, etc) ... Apple owes me for the time I've wasted trying to get their products to work as advertised (my iPhone 3G? 34 restores. iPod Touch? 6 restores. MobileMe family pack? Connection failures, inaccessible email and webapps, etc) ... I will continue to 'steal' from Apple in whatever way I can, if only to make up for the lost time (at least 100 hours in July alone). Cheers.

 

[goosnarrggh]

I wasn't complaining about opinions, or really complaining. I was trying to explain that Apple makes more money on the iPhone beyond the subsidy.

That was true for the first generation iPhone. The same is not true for the iPhone 3G; there have been news releases confirming the fact that there is no ongoing revenue sharing deal in place for those units. Instead, the carrier sells the iPhone at a loss (via a subsidy) and recovers the loss during the term of the contract.

Apple receives its full payment (customer's cash plus carrier's subsidy) for the sale of its hardware, and that's it.

I'm not trying to get into a spat here, just trying to point out factual inaccuracies.

 

[aethelbert]

That was true for the first generation iPhone. The same is not true for the iPhone 3G; there have been news releases confirming the fact that there is no ongoing revenue sharing deal in place for those units. Instead, the carrier sells the iPhone at a loss (via a subsidy) and recovers the loss during the term of the contract.

Apple receives its full payment (customer's cash plus carrier's subsidy) for the sale of its hardware, and that's it.

I'm not trying to get into a spat here, just trying to point out factual inaccuracies.

With the subsidy, they make about the same as what they made with the sale of the first iPhone. That is not the entire income.

Yes, revenue sharing is over. But if you consider that revenue sharing means that Apple receives a direct payment out of each iPhone bill, that's obviously not the only possible way to give money to the phone manufacturer. They're most likely receiving lump payments for each customer that the carriers get, just like pretty much every other phone manufacturer. A subsidy is a loss for the carrier, not a profit for the manufacturer. Do they still make money off of the phone? Sure. But they've gotta pay for software, manufacturing, shipping, packaging, R&D, etc aside from what iSuppli tells you that the hardware costs are. It's close to the same amount that they were making a year ago for each iPhone sale, when there was revenue sharing.

In America, AT&T got an extension on their exclusivity contract a short while back. There's absolutely no way that they would get an extension right after they started paying Apple significantly less for the iPhone rights.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I really don't mind you having an opinion against paying the upgrade fee, but when you decide that you can just steal from a company because you think that they owe you something, my impression of you drastically changes...

Exactly. It's the sense of entitlement to own something he didn't pay for, which goes way over the line to just plain garden-variety dishonesty.

If you don't like how much a company is charging for a product, you have the option of not buying it. He and others seem to think another ethical alternative is stealing it. His defense -- is that he doesn't care what we think of his dishonesty -- takes the cake. This begins to look a lot like sociopathy.

 

[goosnarrggh]

With the subsidy, they make about the same as what they made with the sale of the first iPhone. That is not the entire income.

I suggest to you that that probably is Apple's entire income from the sale of an iPhone. The subsidy may be as much as $400 by some analysts' estimates. That, as I said earlier, would place Apple's wholesale price tag for an 8GB iPhone 3G at about $599, which is probably in the same neighborhood as the amount as Apple might have received over the entire life of the contract of an equivalent first generation iPhone.

A subsidy is a loss for the carrier, not a profit for the manufacturer.

I promise you, I was already aware of that distinction.

Do they still make money off of the phone? Sure. But they've gotta pay for software, manufacturing, shipping, packaging, R&D, etc aside from what iSuppli tells you that the hardware costs are.

I have first-hand experience with the process involved in financing an ongoing engineering project, and I know about the concepts of fixed costs, variable costs, and sunk costs. Thanks for the reminder, though.

It's close to the same amount that they were making a year ago for each iPhone sale, when there was revenue sharing.

iSuppli's estimate for the 3G places the parts cost for the 3G at about $50 less than the parts cost for the first-generation. That might more than balance out the loss they may have taken by increasing their wholesale price and cutting out the revenue sharing deals.

Of course, we don't know for sure what Apple's wholesale price actually is for the iPhone 3G. Nor do we know for sure exactly how much they were receiving from their revenue sharing deals for the first generation iPhone. I estimated about $10 per month, which would place the total revenue share at about $240 over a 2-year contract.

So, by my speculation, Apple used to be bringing in $399 up front, and $240 more over the following 2 years. That would have been a total of $639. But as I stated before, don't forget to depreciate the $240 from revenue sharing due to the time value of money.

Now, by my speculation, Apple is bringing in $599 up front and that's it. The 3G iPhone's parts are estimated to cost $50 less, and I'm assuming manufacturing costs are the same for an iPhone 3G as they were for a first generation iPhone. That's still a net gain of $10 for the iPhone 3G.

 

[aethelbert]

I suggest to you that that probably is Apple's entire income from the sale of an iPhone. The subsidy may be as much as $400 by some analysts' estimates. That, as I said earlier, would place Apple's wholesale price tag for an 8GB iPhone 3G at about $599, which is probably in the same neighborhood as the amount as Apple might have received over the entire life of the contract of an equivalent first generation iPhone.

They made $599 even when the phone itself was $599 and they had revenue sharing? interesting.

And either way, if they're still making the same amount of money from each iPhone subscription, which you seem to imply that they are, doesn't this still support the idea of free iPhone software upgrades?

 

[mavis]

His defense -- is that he doesn't care what we think of his dishonesty -- takes the cake. This begins to look a lot like sociopathy.

Wow - that's quite a leap! Somehow I've gone from a person with questionable ethics to a thief to a sociopath.

The funny thing is, no matter how many accusations you let fly , it changes nothing. I still think Apple owes me for the 100+ hours I've wasted on restores since July 11th, trying to get their **** software working, and I still plan to extract that compensation from them in the best way I know how - by 'stealing' software. But if labeling me with progressively worse titles makes you happy, go ahead. As I said yesterday, it simply doesn't matter.